"He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less."
John 3:30

Friday, June 8, 2012

He Must Increase - Day 159

I heard a teaching some time last year on the subject of "rest." Rest is a principle that is deeply rooted in God's people and God's word but is conspicuously absent from American Christianity. The teaching about the Sabbath is about rest. Heaven is described as "God's rest". When people died in the OT they were "rested" with their fathers. So why don't we talk about rest? Probably because we stink at it. Probably because resting sounds lazy to our hyperactive American minds. Probably because believing in rest would require us to cut out softball, X-box, rotary club, golfing, the annual whatever meetings of the whatever club, and step off at least one committee at church. Rest sounds like some exotic foreign language to us.

Here's a couple of quick thoughts to chew on regarding rest...really roll these around:
1. Rest is healthy. Can any psychologist, philosopher, physician, scientist, or politician disagree? Really?
2. Rest is a gift from God. Jesus taught that the Sabbath was for man, and not man for the Sabbath. That means the rest wasn't one more thing to enslave people, but a gift for their benefit.
3. You don't need to earn a gift. It's a gift. You don't have to justify, rationalize, explain, or earn your rest.

Listen to the things people say about rest..."I'm taking some time off I worked a million hours last week." They don't want people to think they're lazy or unproductive so they have to demonstrate that they are deserving of rest. They feel some kind of irrational guilt about taking time off. Why not simply say, "I'm going to take some time off to rest." If you need rationale for that rest see points 1 and 2! Now go rest.